


musician's block

by qrizzly



Category: Lu Over the Wall
Genre: Fluff, Multi, Teen Banter, happiness, jam Session, only rated teen cuz there are like 3 swear words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21729016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qrizzly/pseuds/qrizzly
Summary: Kai sets the phone on the empty stone step beside him and leans his head on Kunio's shoulder and holds Yuho's hand. He looks out over the empty, ancient stage that belongs to only them. It used to be a place of secrecy, and they kind of don't need it anymore, but...But the sun is setting and the wind combs over his hair, and Kai feels at home.(Kai rocks out with two of his favorite people in the world. It isn't long before "two" becomes "three," and "a two, and a one, two, three, four!")
Relationships: Kai/Yuho/Kunio (Lu Over the Wall)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	musician's block

**Author's Note:**

> saw this movie last night, wrote this in one sitting this morning in bed on my phone until i got super hungry and had to finally eat breakfast at 11 am. lu over the wall is SO cute and imaginative and the characters are SO charming, and so of course my apparent love for m/m/f friends-to-lovers poly ships got me goin with this one :| enjoy

" _Pay attention to meee_ ," Yuho whines. 

Kai's eye twitches when his thumb slips, breaking his 256x beat combo on Love Live! School Idol Festival. 

"I am," he says simply.

He doesn't look up from his phone when he says it, but in a physical sense, he's not lying. 

Yuho's lying face-up across his lap, arms sprawled above her head. And even though Kai is resting his elbows on her stomach as he plays, he's taking extra care not to put the weight of his whole upper body on them because he doesn't want to hurt her. That technically counts as attention.

"No you're _not_ ," Yuho whines again. 

"What kind of attention do you want?" asks Kai blankly, because there are lots of types of attention. Physical, mental, conversational...

Yuho raises up a manicured hand and paps it onto Kai's face in a gentle slap. The sleeve on the sweatshirt Kunio had given her without hesitation ("It's _cold_!") hangs oversized on her hand, covering her palm, and it softens the blow a little. Kai curses under his breath as his combo falls apart again.

"Put the stupid phone down and gimme a kiss," she demands, papping her hand against his face with every syllable. And it's not like Kai is opposed to the idea, but his thumbs are moving rapidly across his screen, eyes in a million different places at once as he watches how the little circles move, and he's afraid that if he tries to hit the pause button without looking, he'll miss.

"Kunio, can you do it instead?" Kai asks the boyfriend beside him, who isn't building up a record combo on Love Live!. Yuho's head is lying on one of the legs of his manspread, and over her he's plucking aimlessly at Kai's ukulele. 

The melodic plink stops, and Kai can practically _feel_ his disapproving stare. "Dude."

Kai hears the faint cue of music from his phone and braces himself for the really fast part coming up. "Please?"

"Kai, she wants _you_ to kiss her."

Kai feels Yuho cross her arms under him. "Okay, fine, neither of you wanna kiss me. I get it."

And goddammit, this part of the song always kicks Kai's ass, and Yuho is using that tone of voice that is trying to be silly and not-serious but her voice is loud enough to give away that her feelings are hurt, so Kai misses like seventeen beats scrambling to pause the game and lean over to kiss Yuho.

It turns out Kunio had the same idea, because his head knocks hard against Kai's as he presses a smooch to Yuho's temple at the same time that Kai kisses her on the cheek.

The boys pull away, both wincing and rubbing the ache on their heads, but Yuho is all gooey and pleased and red-faced over their laps.

"Cool," she says softly through a grin.

Kunio laughs, goofy and loud, and Kai decides that Love Live! is stupid, actually. He sets the phone on the empty stone step beside him and leans his head on Kunio's shoulder and holds Yuho's hand. He looks out over the empty, ancient stage that belongs to only them. It used to be a place of secrecy, and they kind of don't need it anymore, but...

But the sun is setting and the wind combs over his hair, and Kai feels at home. 

"Hey, sun's almost down," Kunio notices, voice surprised and finger pointed out towards the darkening horizon like it's not obvious already. Kai loves him. "We should play something so Lu can come vibe with us."

Yuho lifts her head from Kunio's lap to look bewildered (accusingly, almost) at Kai. "Yeah, didn't we come here to jam in the first place?"

Kai looks down at their intertwined hands, refusing to grace her with the dignity of a response.

"Yup," Kunio answers for him. "But then he kept playing that dumb game."

"Shut up," Kai mutters, trying to seem cool and not-embarrassed, but he's fiddling with Yuho's fingers. Her nail polish is alternating today between a glittery silver and sunflower yellow. "Your nails are pretty, Yuho."

"Thanks, cutie," she says, eyes crinkling up over a small grin. "You're bad at distractions, though. Was today, like... not a good day for music?"

Kai knows that if he simply nods, it would probably be misinterpreted, because he does have days like that. Days where getting out of bed takes everything he's got, and he's too stuck in his own skin to lose himself in a rhythm. On days like that, he doesn't want to head to the stage; he just wants to have Yuho and Kunio cuddle him in his room and talk aimlessly until they fall asleep, drooling on each other. 

But today's not really like that. He doesn't feel weighed down by a heavy rock in his chest, he just feels like he's missing something, like an incomplete puzzle. And no matter what he tries, he can't find the right shape that'll make him whole. He can't find the right sample or percussion or instrument that will make the bassline and the melody come seamlessly together.

"I've got musician's block," he mumbles.

Yuho's face softens with sympathy and Kunio mutters a knowing, "Oh." They've both been there.

"If a break's what you need, we didn't have to come here, you know," Kunio tells him, voice a little smaller than usual because he knows that at times his energy can be a bit much, and that when it's combined with Yuho's personality, all of the loudness and cheer can sway Kai in directions he doesn't want to go. But Kai shakes his head, because that's not what's happening at all.

"I wanted to... try again today, I think. But then I like... I looked at my beat pad, and my list of favorited samples, and I was just like... _fuck_."

It's an incomplete explanation in Kai's eyes, ringing strange like an off note. But Yuho chuckles and Kunio laughs. They get it.

"I feel that," Kunio says, plinking away at the ukulele again. He strums a clean C-G-Am-F pattern, just like Kai taught him. 

Kai lifts his head from Kunio's shoulder, a little smile forming on his face. "Hey, let's play something anyway, though. Even if I make it sound like garbage," he says. "I wanna see Lu."

Yuho practically launches herself from the boys' laps to sit up and smack Kai lightly on the shoulder. "You don't make _anything_ sound like garbage," she tells him, voice headstrong and certain, and when she presses a smooch to his cheek, Kunio follows suit and kisses his other one, and Kai feels so warm and full of love he feels like he might fall over.

With just a few words, a simple suggestion, two of his favorite people in the world are up and full of energy, practically rushing down the stone steps to the stage. Yuho is grinning, twirling and twisting her body around when she reaches it, and Kunio is holding both of his hands above his head, pinkies and index fingers out in a _rock!_ gesture. 

He and Yuho whoop in tandem as they pick up their instruments. Kai can't match their energy, but he also can't wipe the smile off his face as he approaches his laptop.

With a couple clicks, he gets a pre-made rhythm going. It's not homemade like Kai likes it, but his favorite people are bobbing their heads below him. Kunio is shouting, "Ooh! I like this!" and Yuho is grinning as she plays a bassline that skips excitedly to the electric drums.

Kunio follows her key, wrist flicking loosely as he strums to the rhythm, adding a nice, twangy sound to it. Kai scrolls away at his samples, looking for something that might fit snugly with the funky rhythm they've got going, but with worry building in his chest he finds that he can't come up with anything. 

Even from all the way down there, Yuho notices his anxiety. "Just try something out!" she shouts over the music. "We'll work it out as we go, 'kay?"

Kai takes a breath and nods. He picks a sample he found recently that he likes, a wavey and smooth synth that moves up and down, but after a few bars, he decides it's too slow to match the energy of Yuho and Kunio's playing. 

He shakes his head, replaces the synth with a rhythm guitar, but it's basically the same thing as Kunio's twang and so he stops it immediately. He wants to bring something new to this.

He switches to percussion and goes with his current favorite set. It's got robotic boops and clicks but also nice shaker instruments to choose from. He plays a tambourine loop, and switches between two clap samples for every offbeat. It's bland and boring and sounds off to Kai's ears, but if the exclamations of excitement and intrigue below him are anything to go by, then Yuho and Kunio don't seem to mind too much.

Still, though, Kai finds that he gets bored with the pattern fast, so he stops it, wanting to start fresh. He scrolls and scrolls and scrolls for a preset, imagining what each will sound like, how to fill the gaps between Yuho's energetic bass and Kunio's racing guitar. 

"Don't be scared, dude! Just go with anything!" encourages Kunio, voice barely echoing out over his shredding.

_That's not how it works,_ Kai wants to shout back. _Talented jerk._

He runs a hand through his hair and looks up at the sky, which is starting to darken into a soft purple behind the clouds. He squints up at them like they'll tell him what he should do. They drift silently. 

Kai sighs, about to close his laptop and give up, when he hears a splash.

Almost immediately he's on his feet, turning around and rushing up the steps two at a time to peer over the steep cliff, eyes darting across the clear ocean below for the colors of a sparkler radish aligned in a girl-shape.

Kai hears Lu before he sees her, which is how it usually goes. 

Far, far below him, her strange, bright, alien-y voice sings out a melody that's difficult to make out at first. But then, Kai sees something rising up to him, a rectangular pillar of water that stretches taller and taller. On the surface floats a little girl with a white face, rosy cheeks, and huge, dark eyes. She's ant-sized in the ocean at first, growing as she rises higher, but the whole way through, Kai can see her curvy, bright grin. It's contagious.

The ocean pillar shoots up, and it dissolves into limp sea water just at the edge of the cliff, and Lu is bright and glittery in the air until she lands with a perfect, gymnastic bounce onto the ground. She's wordless but glowing with joy, short limbs outstretched in a star shape, and Kai swears that nothing sets happy energy fizzing in his body quite like Lu's surprise appearances.

In the background of all the sound, Yuho and Kunio cry out with excitement at seeing her. Lu skips and dances and cartwheels around, weightless on her cherry-stem sea legs, her melody filling in all the right gaps between the jangly guitar and groovy bass. The gears in Kai's mind loosen and jiggle before falling out of place entirely, and he finds his feet moving emphatically before he can stop them. 

Though, it's not as if he would try to stop them in the first place.

He skips and dances down the stone steps and reaches his computer. He has to lean over it, unable to even sit down as his legs flail wildly to the music flooding his brain. Kunio's guitar pitches up in a pleasing way, and Yuho's bass darkens in response, and the song expands its reach, fills Kai up from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He grins at the silly sensation. 

When he looks down at all three of his favorite people, they're dancing crazily as they play and sing. Yuho can't seem to stop laughing and Kunio won't stop whooping as Lu leaps and twirls in figure eights around the both of them.

Kai doesn't think too hard about which sound he chooses. He picks what he knows will sound good to his ears, plays around with it, and makes it work. 

**Author's Note:**

> HEY!! i know like eight people in total have seen this movie and liked it, so it means a lot to me that you took the time to read this!! 
> 
> please let me know what you think, feedback fuels the tiny machine in my head that likes to write and i'm always looking for ways to improve my work!! <33


End file.
